A Brief History of German Surnames

• Until the 12th century, surnames as we know them were not commonly used in Germany. A person was known to his community by his or her first name. To distinguish between individuals who shared a common first name in a community, a second word would be used to help identify the person. The second word attached to the person's name would often describe their occupation, appearance, behavior, an event, the name of their father, the name of their farm, or the town where they came from.
• During the period 1100-1200, population growth and the increasing mobility and migration of the population brought about the adoption of surnames that could be passed to successive generations of descendents. Legal systems in use in the 1200s, and the need for citizen lists and tax registers also promoted the adoption of surnames. Through the 13th to the 17th centuries, it was not uncommon for a person to adopt a different name. A man might choose to take his mother's surname, his wife's surname if she inherited, or the name of his farm.
• By 1500 the practise of inherited surnames was well established throughout present day Germany. By 1700 most German church parishes started recording births/baptisms, marriages, and deaths.


• The German alphabet is an extended version of the Latin alphabet and contains 30 different letters. This alphabet consists of the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet, plus 4 additional letters. The four additional letters are Ä ä, Ö ö, Ü ü and ß. When it's not possible to print or type the umlauts the characters can be transcribed as Ae ae, Oe oe, and Ue ue. The ß letter can be transcribed as ss, and it never occurs at the beginning of a word.
• A German word or surname containing an umlaut letter would always be recorded with the unlaut character in order to be a correct spelling.

The Mollers Surname

• The Mollers surname, without an umlaut and ending in S, is a very uncommon surname. The surname originates in the municipality of Büllingen, Province of Liège, Belgium. Büllingen is a largely German-speaking municipality located on the border with Germany.
• During the period 1815-1919, Büllingen belonged first to the Kingdom of Prussia and later to the German Empire following the unification of Germany. In 1920 the Province of Liège was ceded to Belgium under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles as part of the Eupen-Malmedy (East Cantons) area.
• With a surname as unique as "Mollers", it would be an interesting project to chart every Mollers in the United States back to their immigration and origins. With Y-DNA testing at familytreedna.com of Mollers male descendants, a Mollers Family Tree could be assembled uniting branches under a distant common ancestor. Refer to the Mollers Y-DNA Project page.
• In December 2020, the number of Mollers in the Belgium telephone book numbered 54. In the German telephone book, there were only 7 entries.
• The distribution of the Mollers surname in Germany as of December 2020. Source: geogen.stoepel.net

The First Written Records of the Mullers/Mollers Surname

The Bullingen Kreis Parish baptismal/birth, marriage, and death records begin in 1684.

	 
	 FamiliySearch.org catalog. Registres paroissiaux, 1684-1925, 
         Authors: Eglise catholique. Paroisse de Bullange (Liège)
         Note 	                         Location 	   	     Film      DGS 	
         Baptêmes 1684-1797              Family History Library      318086    8189130
         Mariages, sépultures 1684-1797  Family History Library      318087    8189134
	  

The Mollers surname was first recorded as Mullers in a 1695 and 1696 marriage record.

The first recorded baptismal record was in 1699 for Anna Catharina Mullers. Her father was Peter Mullers and her mother was Petronella.

By the mid 1700's, the spelling was Mollers. Below, a 1752 baptismal record for Peter Mollers.